Japan, the first country to clearly put forward the “Indo-Pacific strategy,” actively sells the concept of “Indo-Pacific” and “Indo-Pacific strategy” to the US Trump administration. While persuading the US to accept the idea of the “Indo-Pacific strategy,” Japan has constantly improved and adjusted its own “Indo-Pacific strategy,” which evolves in stages. The stages are the result of Japanese decision-makers’ outlook on Japan’s status in the international system and its environment at home and abroad in different periods, reflecting the process in which Japan formulated and implemented its foreign strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. The “compound structural tensions” between China, Japan and the US is the dominant variable of the Abe Administration’s introduction and adjustment of “Indo-Pacific strategy,” and “Abe doctrine” is its intermediary variable. At the same time, such factors as the history, the changes in the balance of power structures of China, Japan and the US, and the Japan-US Alliance since World War II determine the mechanism of Japan’s strategy towards China, which help to subdivide the analysis framework into several dimensions. This paper dissects the “compound structural tensions” between China, Japan and the US from the following perspectives: the strength comparison between the three states, the strategic intention of China and the US, and the interactive relationship between the three. It further analyzes the intermediary role of the “Abe doctrine” through a review of the Japanese decision-makers’ outlook on the above factors. In view of the fact that the dominant factor of the “compound structural tension” will not change, and the present US government will adopt hard policies towards China and soft ones towards Japan, Japan’s “Indo-Pacific strategy” targeting at China will not be abrogated at all. However, Japan is likely to adjust the specific objectives and operation policies of the strategy according to the changes in the relations among the three major countries.